Fight for Glory (My Wounded Soldier #1) (4 page)

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Five

I was shaken. And
I knew shaken from the field of battle to after.

So I dug that
grave and I dug that grave. But Jimmy and William rode in before I could
contemplate it fully, before I could leave behind the sleep that had claimed
the missus, the baby, me, and even my ma.

Never had I known
Ma to sleep beyond four, and yet, even she had reposed like the dead. What if
she had come around that blanket and seen me tangled with the missus?

But I’d done
nothing. I hadn’t been aware. And it was brokenness in the missus made her
reach for me--our shared sympathy over the events. In the height of battle friendships
were forged. They rarely lasted, but they were real for the duration
nonetheless. And that is what had happened between the missus and me.
Nothing more.
That kiss
in her
hair…nothing more. She brought a kindness forward in me. That was it.

I didn’t know who
I was arguing with as I built a fire for the wash beneath the full kettle. But
the sight of Jimmy and William coming on, William on his big mule, Jimmy riding
that black stallion, it made me edgy. Yet I’d had such a strange deep sleep,
and I wasn’t hung over.

“Mornin’,” Jimmy
said, raising his hat. He was the politician now, appointed as he’d been by
that simpering committee. He was our great hero, they said.

William did not
speak. We often sparred over whether he’d used ten words during the entire war
or twenty.

I didn’t know how
they got here so quick, but I knew Jimmy would tell me. So he did. They came to
town right after Gaylin and Seth had brought the body in. Jimmy sent those boys
home, and he and William came from the trail straight here. They looked about
spent, but I knew them that way, spent from living in the saddle.

So I said I had a
grave to finish digging and a coffin big as an elephant to plant in it. They
helped me finish the digging and it went quick now. Together we got rope and
lowered that coffin down and it was like letting a piano settle is what.

After we filled
that grave I told them what had happened. They knew some of the details already
from the boys. “This will be big news round here. That fellow rode for the
blue,” Jimmy said.

“He’s for nothin’
but his crazy self,” I said.

They were used to
me, but Jimmy’s eyes had that shine, and the corner of his mouth, he was always
laughing at me. When I called him on it, he denied it every time. But every now
and then I wiped that grin right off his face, and then I saw the real Jimmy,
the one the politician couldn’t cover, and it was settled between us for a
while—he was full of shit.

“Guess I need to
talk to the woman…Miss Addie is it?”

Too at ease he
was. This was the part of his job he would find sweetest, saving the orphans
and widows. That’s if they were of a ripe womanly age.

“She
be
asleep,” I said, and my hands were closed.

There was that
grin and I was in the mood to take care of it, so I had to breathe
slow
.

My ma opened the
door then. “Jimmy? What you two doing here at this hour?”

He pulled off the
hat now, and tethered his horse to the post.

“William,” Ma was
saying, “you wipe your feet, and there’s coffee.”

“No,” I said. “They’ll
take it out here.”

But none of them
paid me mind, and the boys were on the porch kissing her cheek and her lit up
like a coal oil lamp, telling them to come inside.

“See you don’t
wake the baby,” I said, like some nursemaid. I cursed under my breath and
followed them in, my eyes going to the curtain where I heard the baby lightly
fussing the way she did when the missus tried to feed her.

There was no way
these two should be in here. Sometimes my ma…an infuriating woman who thought
the world was made out of daisies and sunshine, still saw these two like the
motherless scalawags they were at ten years old. They were a heap older now
with a lot of trail behind them and she had no idea. No idea.

So there they
were, scraping chairs on the floor, like the cavalry charging into battle for
noise, and that babe set up a protest. They smelled like they’d been riding
hard, and I went for the window, forced it open, then when I saw the way the
morning breeze rippled the blanket, I feared it would be too much for Miss
Addie and her child.

And from where I
stood, the blanket blew enough that I saw her, the baby attached to her creamy
flesh, and her dark eyes on mine, and me looking back, like she was the
Madonna, so beautiful I forgot I was standing in that cabin staring like a
fool.

But the three, Ma
included, had stopped their foolery and were also looking at me, unable to
understand how it had been with me and the woman…unable to know, and I didn’t
want them knowing.

I knocked a few
frogs off my tongue and said, “That too much air, Missus?”

She was such a beauty.
The baby pulled from her breast, not liking my voice, and I saw her rosy
nipple. That breast looked pretty and ripe, and it was the first I’d seen just
right there in the flesh and all. I felt my heart grow into something as big as
a shield. I wanted to protect her with everything I had. Starting with throwing
Jimmy and William clean out this window I’d just opened.

So I swallowed
all those frogs and went to the stove to pour my own coffee cause Ma just
poured it for those not her own blood, I guessed.

When I turned
around William had his face over his cup, but Jimmy looked full on at me,
crowing inside.

“Ain’t you got
some saving business to get to?” I said.

“Yes. Mrs. Varn,”
he said over his shoulder and toward the blanket, “you be fit enough to tell me
some about the killing?”

Well, I didn’t
think he should put it that way, but he didn’t know anything about being a
sheriff, so there it was.

Ma hurried back
there and came out holding the baby. She showed her to the two, and they knew
better than to try and touch something so pure and clean. Ma took the little
mite to the cradle, and I got up to make sure Jimmy didn’t think he had a clear
path to the missus.

I stuck my head
around the blanket, but kept my eyes on the floor, but I could see she was modest,
so I looked into those brown eyes. “Missus,” I said, letting them know we
talked, her and me, and they’d go through me now, “if you feel too frail to
speak about this thing, then Jimmy can just
hightail
it out of here for another time.”

I heard Jimmy laugh
a little, but I paid him no mind whatever.

“I can answer,”
she said, her voice so ladylike and smooth.

“How-do, Mrs.
Varn, I’m Sherriff Jimmy Leidner,” Jimmy said from the table, talking loud like
the blanket that hid her from view was made out of pinewood.

“Tom, could you
take down the blanket, you think?” she asked me, scooting herself higher in the
bed.

“You don’t have
to,” I said.
“He ain’t nothin’ to look at,”
I added.

He and William
guffawed and the baby cried. Ma spoke to her, and I gritted my teeth for I had
not been making a joke. I reached and pulled the blanket free from the rafter. I
bundled it in my hand, then placed it over the basket and sat on the one chair
near her bed, the chair I had slept in. I wanted to reach beneath the quilt and
take her little hand, but I did not, letting my presence be enough because
these matters were trial-some to recall.

I looked at the
two, albeit defiantly, eager to have them collect their business and ride out. My
arms were crossed against my chest, and it covered only by my long johns. I was
a bull in the chest, and I cared not to remind either of them, not that we
didn’t know one another’s forms better than our own for we had run naked for
sundry reasons growing up, most of them having to do with swimming in the
creek, or taking a dare. As men in war we hadn’t cared for modesty, only for
surviving one thing then another.

So just to remind
them, I sat there mulish and cantankerous and did not give them the most
sanguine flicker.

Yet for this
missus I had nothing but softness. My heart was made out of butter and she was
warmth. So you see the mix.

Yes, William saw
it all in one sweep of attention. He would not look often, but studying things
with barely a look was one of his gifts.

Jimmy, however,
exceeded my dread. Like me, he saw a vision. I had observed him with the fairer
gender, and he liked them all, treated them all with an equal amount of
appreciation. But this…he was at a loss. He couldn’t renew like usual. He
looked at me, his fingers raking his greasy hair, the bone in his throat
bobbing like a cork in a spring pond. He stood
slowly,
bringing his heels together, one hand on his heart while his head did a little
bow.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ma’am.”
Then
he remembered William, and that was just an excuse to look away so he could
regain himself.

“And this here’s
my deputy William Strongbow.”

William stood
quick and said, “Ma’am.” Then he sat again, trying to hide a smile.

Jimmy’s eyes
swept back to Missus and she said, “Pleased to make your acquaintance,
gentlemen.” Then she looked at me and we smiled at each other.

Jimmy cleared his
throat drawing her attention to him again. “Ma’am it grieves me to have to
address this terrible crime when you are in such a delicate way.”

“I am not so
delicate I can’t speak, Sir. Please, carry on,” she said, and he was a little
thrown, I think, for she could cut through to the gizzard, and her voice had
quality.

I wanted to hear
this myself, I’ll admit. So we waited while she picked at the quilt for one
tick on the clock. “He came from the direction of the river. You know how they
come through. We feed them sometimes…well I do…and Richard doesn’t…didn’t want
me to, so we had disagreement. He said they would mark this place…and I said it
was the Lord’s mark of generosity, then for all they had sacrificed. I cared
not what flag they had fought under, we are under one and under God, I said,
and we all get hungry.”

“Here, here,” Ma
said, and I feared we’d have revival meeting soon.

Tears were there,
but Missus wiped them away and spoke strongly, “This one was different. He said
he knew Richard’s father…Charles. Seems he had a disagreement with Charles back
east. I couldn’t imagine what he referred to as that man does not have business
with us these days. This soldier said he owed Charles money. I think, perhaps,
he wanted Charles to take care of his family while he went to prison. He lost
his children, you see, when he got out. She had taken them west. So he…came
here…to us…to our farm…to settle…to…to kill...,” she dipped her head, and
squeezed my hand with both of hers, so I added my other to the top of the pile,
and I was bent toward her, barely breathing I could feel so much building in
her, and as it did it built in me like we were one.

“He raised that
sword…and struck my husband…,” she was all but screaming, and the baby set a
howl which had Ma moving and shushing.

“Missus,” I said
like a cooing pigeon. Well she had to get it out, and after she did, I would
beat Jimmy other side of the barn for raking this up.

So on she went…,
“…he…my boy…my Johnny standing there…he raised that old thing, that weapon of
death…at my boy…and….”

I was over her,
my arms around her somehow. I was patting her hair as she cried on my shoulder.
I was patting her back, her small narrow back so tender, not meant to know such
burdens.

She pulled back
to speak to me, and her voice was iron, “I knew I should fire, but he shamed me
like he always did, not trusting my judgment when I knew this was
different…that old soldier was different from the others, and I had aim…and yet
Richard made me lower that gun…and if I had not I would have been quicker and I
could have saved him. Why did I listen? I knew.”

More tears, and I
patted her. Then I went to the basket and tore through, finding a small patch
she could wipe her face with. I handed it to her, but I did not expect her to
grab my hand, yet she did. Slowly I sat, looking at the far wall and not at
Jimmy as I was too stuck to react without a great sense of myself.
For she chose me, before them all.

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Six

“I got reports to
write, you know,” Jimmy was saying by way of defending himself for having
disturbed the missus at the crowing hour.

“Then best get
back to town and write them,” I snapped. I’d been mad at him for three years. And
ever since he took this lawman’s job I’d been getting madder.

“You got your cap
set on that woman,” Jimmy said all smiles.

“I got no cap,
first off,” I said, and I heard William snicker. He rarely made a noise except
to spit, so I looked at him sharp. Turning back to Jimmy I said, “Second off
I’m going west. My plans haven’t changed.”

“A mite tender
footed about this topic. But good to know you won’t be filling Miss Addie’s
dance card. I might want to scribble my name on one of those lines.
When the time is proper, of course.”

Now William took
to coughing.

I leaned toward
Jimmy. “I’ll make sure before I go she understands whose name to keep off that
card.”

“What’s that
supposed to mean?” He shoved his hat on his head.

“Best get those
reports written. Need to practice your handwriting so the missus can be sure
and cross your name off her list.” Now I shoved my hat on my head.

“One of these
days…I’ve had about enough of your holier-than-thou attitude,” he said mounting
his stallion.

“Just let me know,”
I said, “that day comes.”

William nodded,
and I gave him the same dull look I had given to Jimmy. It lightened my heart
to see them both go their ways.

Several days
passed, and it was Ma’s inclination that the missus should recover at our farm.
Ma couldn’t be away this long with the threshers to cook for, and she believed
the change would do the missus good.

I had been back
and forth afield, helping with the threshing. I did not get to be around the
missus, but I took it as a good thing as I was too attached as is. I waited for
it to dissipate, but it seemed to hang on like a spring cold, so I tried to
busy myself around her farm, but mostly I sent Seth there, or even Gaylin to
tend things.

But at home I had
Johnny. I don’t know what I did to earn such loyalty, but he followed me as if
he were my armor bearer, so I put up with his chattering, and I gave him plenty
to do. I knew from having Seth and Gaylin afoot growing up that hard work was
what a boy needed to make him feel all was right with his world. I enjoyed
showing him things like my pa done me, and I wondered why his own father had
not explained the simple things like how to use a hammer without blackening
your finger, or how to tighten a harness so it’d do its task without raising a
welt on the livestock. I did not know, but felt the curiosity to ferret these
answers.

But as I feared
might happen, one night as I sat on my bed drinking my desultory mood away, I
saw that young one peeking at me from the doorway of my room in the barn.

“Hey there,” I
said, knowing my voice betrayed my state.

He came in a step
then. “What’s that?” he said pointing to the bottle I corked.

I cleared my
throat. Lord a mercy. “Medicine,” I said.

“My pa took
medicine in the barn, too. He said not to tell my ma.”

“Best not tell
her then,” I said knowing I was going to Hades.

“I never told. I
won’t tell on you either, Mr. Tanner.”

“Makes me no difference.
No shame in medicine,” I slurred.

“Yes sir,” he
said.

“Go on in the
house now. It’s late. Allie
know
you’re about?”

“Yes sir. She’s
popping corn. She sent me out to see if you want some.”

“Well now,” I
said, hoping to speak more clearly as I shoved the bottle under my bed, “I
think I’ll turn in.”

“Yes sir. Mr.
Tanner? When you were in the war…did you shoot anybody?”

He’d asked me
this a dozen times and every time I’d maneuvered my way through. I answered
without ever answering. “Why you so bent on asking me this?” I said, and yet
it’s the very question I would have asked myself.

He toed around on
the floor. “My pa didn’t go to war.” He had his mother’s eyes. They looked into
mine with a look so purely hurt.

“Not everyone
did, Son.”

“But…that man
said my pa…should a gone.”

“What man?
That crazy soldier?”

“Yes sir. He said
my pa didn’t go to war and he went instead. He was mad. My pa…he got called up
and he didn’t go.”

I scooted forward
and put my elbows on my knees. The missus hadn’t told it this way. Maybe such a
young one misunderstood. “Going to war don’t get you into heaven, Johnny.”

“No Sir. But…ain’t
you a coward if you don’t go? That’s what they said at school. Boys fought
about it. Some said you had to sign up to be a man of mettle. They said if you
were called up, you were just a coward. But my pa…he didn’t go. His daddy got
that old man to go for him. That’s why he was so mad. If you saw his face…he
was so mad at my daddy.”

If Johnny was
older, I might have offered him a drink at this point. He looked that done in.

“Come here,” I
said, and he took careful steps forward, within an arm’s length of me.

I took hold of
his arms and looked him good in the eye. “Wasn’t he a good pa to you?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then you leave
off judging him until you’re older and can understand. That old soldier told it
the way he saw it, but that don’t make it so. Your pa had his reasons. And he
didn’t deserve to die that way, without a chance to fight.”

“But he didn’t
fight. He didn’t even try. He just stood there. He didn’t even try.” Johnny
threw himself on me then, and my hands moved
slow
to
comfort him.

I just let him
cry it out. It had been a long time coming for him. I patted him and let him go
on. His small body was heaving with sorrow. I wished my pa would show up and
take him off me, for I was the worst at comforting. But it was no hard thing to
let him wet my shirt. I knew this kind of sorrow myself but I deserved what I
got where this one was just an innocent child.

“Your pa didn’t
see it coming, Johnny. He was a man of peace. Sometimes it’s hard to know what
another is planning. That old soldier got twisted inside. Your pa didn’t see it
coming.”

“But Ma did,”
Johnny said.

“See there? Your
ma is one strong woman. Oooh-ee your pa would be so proud of her.”

“She blew that
cussed man’s head off.” Johnny pulled back then, and spoke in my face, spit
flying and all, “His hat went flying and this little trail of red…it was
blood…it was like a tail following that hat.
Just following
it across the sky.”

I nodded. “I’m
glad your ma stopped that man from doing more harm. But I’m sad for that man. It’s
never a happy day when folks get killed. Not good ones or bad ones. It’s never
a happy day. But sometimes you got to do the hardest thing to protect the
innocent.”

“My ma would have
been a great soldier,” Johnny said.

“She is a
soldier, Johnny. And if you’re going to help her now you have to be a good
boy.”

“You think my pa
is looking at me? Can he see everything I do?”

I looked at him
for a minute. “Yes, I think he is watching. He’s saying…I’m in heaven now
Johnny,
and I want you to get here one day, too. So you got
to be really good to your ma and your little sister.”

Johnny nodded. “I
will.”

“Your pa might be
gone…but you can still make him proud.”

Johnny nodded. He
left for the popcorn then and I stared after. I thought I said some pretty
worthy things to him and I had no idea where they came from. “Shit,” I
whispered. I was sweating like I’d hoed a field of corn in the July sun. If
that’s what being a pa was about, then you could have that calling. Might as
well have asked me where babies come from while he was at it. “Shit,” I
whispered again.

So it was Miss
Addie was to come to us, and I trusted no other with the transport but myself
and old Bess. I rode over Sabbath morning, only too glad to have a noble reason
for missing the service. I did not care for this particular preacher as he
danced like the devil while he screamed like a lunatic. If it was the stage he
wanted I heard tell they had such shows in New York City. I wished he’d go there and
leave us alone, and till he moved on or up, or maybe down, I had no pull to
subject myself.

But I cleaned
myself at the well, and put on my one clean shirt, and knocked all the crud off
my boots, and shaved my whiskers, and combed my hair, though it was long enough
to be pretty wild with the slightest breeze.

Truth be told, as
I stared over Bess’s rump and moved along the pockmarked road, I felt a measure
of anticipation at the notion of seeing Miss Addie and bringing her to our
home. Well a good part of me was against it, but the better man in me said
hoo-rah.

Not that it
mattered so much as I would leave this place in six short weeks. All was in
ready. And that made me feel a measure of safety as I thought of her daily
nearness and how it could blind a man like me, one so pathetic and lonely.

I found myself
remembering that one time, me pretty drunk, but sober enough I could know in
myself that plunge into that dove was pure pleasure.

That’s all I
knew. I shook off the memory of Missus’ white breast. What a no good dog-licker
I was to think of it. But still, to have the liberty to touch such a thing….

It’s not like I
couldn’t find breasts a-plenty to rub on. That’s why I held myself behind such
a tight fence. Womenfolk found me comely. I didn’t say this with conceit. But
when I passed the saloons in the war, or when I entered one, the women came to
me like I was Mr. Money-pockets. And I did not look anything beyond a poor
soldier.

And growing up,
they favored Garrett if they were truly good, but the ones who were not so
truly good, they let me know about it. Some of them were now married proper and
filling the pews at church, husbands and children in tow, and I blushed to
think how they’d tried to chase me down. I wasn’t having it. The more they
chased the more I ran. I don’t know why but I figured nothing could come of it,
and Ma would have killed me if I made a child before I took the vows. So it was
raw fear of that woman that kept me on the narrow before the war.

After…it was a
dead heart. I’d nothing to give another, and I knew it well. I could want, but
I couldn’t fill their needs. It wouldn’t be just to do that to somebody,
condemn them to a life with the likes of me. And I couldn’t settle. I knew it
pained Ma that I kept one foot on the wheel. And the drinking wasn’t the
example my pa would have for Seth and Gaylin. I had no right to tarnish his
household. I was a man now.
Best left to my own.
But
more than all of it was what I’d done in the war. It’s that which filled my
worst dreams and took my hope.

I couldn’t be
like my older brother Garrett had been, all saintly and lily-white. But I
couldn’t be Jimmy, poking anything that would open. William was my closest
pard, the most like me. He was so shy in himself he couldn’t even talk to a
girl. And they said he was a handsome cuss. I couldn’t see it, he was just
William, but the girls always said he was dandy, and it made him die with shame
to be singled out for anything more than knowing how to trail. Best I’d seen is
all.

That’s why Jimmy
took him in our company. That and I wouldn’t have it another way. Those days I
wouldn’t go to town without him much less war. If folks looked hard on a man of
his brand being among us they were soon quieted by his steadiness in the field
of battle, his ability to track, his quiet uncomplaining nature, and a certain
something you could never quite trust enough to turn your back on. Less you
were me or Jimmy.

Jimmy was the
stray of our county, belonging to everyone it seemed.
Same
with the women.
He had two or three on the string at the same time. I
knew how he done it, he was so in love with himself he didn’t need anybody
else, and the girls took it as him being tough to corral. They seemed to like
that kind of a struggle. He made them cry, but they couldn’t tell their Pa’s
lest they admit their shame
cause
he always got under
their petticoats eventually.

He’d dodged a
bullet his whole life. Down the road he’d go, on to the next one. I kept
thinking surely this time he’d get the buckshot, but he never did. He swore I
was their great disappointment,
then
he’d swoop in and
make it up to them. I didn’t believe a word of it, but sometimes his pluck made
me mad.

Deep in my
thoughts I covered those three miles in no time. I pulled up to the porch and
hopped to the ground. Ma opened the door. She came out like a general, handed
me the swaddled baby then went back in.

“Ma,” I said,
“how can I load up if I have to hold a baby?”

I followed her
in,
cause
the sweet baby was grunting like she didn’t
approve. I nearly collided with the missus, standing there, her pale face so
pretty, her bonnet on hiding all that pretty hair. She only came to my shoulder.
I never seen eyes like hers, it embarrassed me to look into them, but I
couldn’t look away neither. These feelings weren’t going away. And now she was
coming with me. And…I wanted her to. I felt protective of her.

She was holding
onto a chair with both her little hands. She’d lost a lot of blood, and it took
a time to get it back. Ma was going outside carrying a couple of bundles.

“Missus if you’ll
sit I’ll hand you the baby…”

“Jane,” she said
in that voice I liked so much. “We…I named her Jane.”